Albert Imre Szent-Györgyi was born in Budapest, Hungary on
September 16, 1893, the second son of Miklos and Josefine
Szent-Györgyi. His father, a businessman from a titled
family, spent much of his time running a large estate about
fifty miles from Budapest. The rest of the family--Josefine,
their three sons, and her mother--visited the countryside
during the summers, but otherwise stayed in the family's
apartment in Pest. Josefine was a talented musician, but
her lineage also included several generations of notable
scientists, the Lenhosséks. Her brother Mihály, a famous
physiologist and professor at the University of Budapest,
was a constant presence during Albert's childhood and
eventually inspired his interest in science.

Szent-Györgyi remembered himself as "a very dull child" who
hated books and often needed a tutor's help to pass his
exams. At sixteen, however, he found himself suddenly
hungry for knowledge, and began to excel at his schoolwork.
He announced to his family that he intended to become a
medical researcher, but his uncle Mihály Lenhossék
strenuously discouraged the idea; science, he said, had no
place for dim-wits such as Albert. Perhaps his nephew could
pursue a career in cosmetics, dentistry, or pharmacy, but
never science! Lenhossék relented when Szent-Györgyi
graduated high school with honors. He entered the Budapest
Medical School in 1911. Soon bored with his medical
courses, he gravitated to his uncle's anatomy laboratory.
Lenhossék allowed him to work there, with one condition:
Albert's first research would focus on the anatomy of the
human rectum and anus (Mihály apparently suffered from
hemorrhoids and hoped to profit from his nephew's
investigations.) Szent-Györgyi's first scientific article,
published in 1913, therefore dealt with the epithelium of
the anus. "Because of my uncle," he often joked later, "I
started science at the wrong end."

Szent-Györgyi's medical education was interrupted by World
War I. In the summer of 1914 he began serving as an army
medic. Though he earned a medal of valor for his bravery,
by 1916, after two years in the trenches, he was disgusted
with the war and despaired of surviving it. He carefully
shot himself through the left humerus, claimed he had been
hit by enemy fire, and was sent back to Budapest. While his
arm healed, Szent-Györgyi finished medical school and
received his MD in 1917. Later that year he married
Cornelia ("Nelly") Demeny, the daughter of Hungary's
Postmaster General. She accompanied Szent-Györgyi to his
next military post, an army clinic in northern Italy. Their
only child, Cornelia ("Little Nelly") was born in October
1918, just before the war ended.

Hoping to obtain further scientific training, and escape
the post-war chaos in Budapest, Szent-Györgyi took a
research position in pharmacology in Pozsony, then a part
of Hungary. When Pozsony became part of Czechoslovakia in
September 1919, the Hungarians were ordered to leave. After
several months back in Budapest, Szent-Györgyi moved on to
laboratories in Berlin, Hamburg, and Leiden, gaining
experience in biochemistry. In Groningen he began studying
biological oxidation and intracellular respiration,
processes essential to energy production in living systems.
One of his research publications caught the attention of
the eminent biochemist Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, who
offered Szent-Györgyi a Rockefeller fellowship at Cambridge
University in 1926. For the next several years, he worked
to isolate a reducing substance found in citrus fruit, some
vegetables, and adrenal glands. Not sure of its identity,
he called it "hexuronic acid." Cambridge awarded him a PhD
for the work in 1927. Within two years Szent-Györgyi was
able to isolate nearly one ounce of the substance, but made
no further progress in establishing its identity.

In 1931, at the invitation of the Minister of Education,
Szent-Györgyi returned to Hungary to head the University of
Szeged's department of medical chemistry. He proved to be a
legendary teacher and unconventional administrator. He
quickly assembled a group of young researchers, and set
them to work on various biochemical problems. One
researcher was a young American post-doctoral fellow,
Joseph Svirbely, who had recently worked on vitamin C with
Charles G. King at the University of Pittsburgh. Szent-Györgyi
asked him to test "hexuronic acid" for anti-scurvy
properties. Svirbely soon identified it as vitamin C (now
also known as ascorbic acid), and they published this
finding in April 1932. King had also published about this
several weeks earlier, possibly on the basis of news from
Svirbely, and a controversy over priority developed during
the next decade.

Szent-Györgyi also investigated respiration in muscle
tissue during this period, clarifying the role of
dicarboxylic acids (e.g. malic, succinic, and fumaric
acids), and identifying the process as a cycle. He
correctly defined most of the steps in the process, later
known as the "Krebs cycle." Szent-Györgyi was awarded the
1937 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for "discoveries
in connection with the biological combustion processes,
with especial reference to vitamin C and the catalysis of
fumaric acid."

Meanwhile, Szent-Györgyi continued his research into the
metabolic processes of muscle cells. By 1938 he was
investigating the biochemistry of muscle movement, which
was still poorly understood. He and his team discovered
that muscle cells contained a protein, actin, which
combined with the known muscle protein myosin to form the
complex protein actomyosin. When adenosine triphosphate
(ATP) (the primary source of energy in animal cells) was
added to actomyosin, the fibers of that protein contracted,
thus demonstrating the basic process of movement.

Besides his groundbreaking work on muscle chemistry,
Szent-Györgyi became increasingly involved in anti-fascist
activities after 1935, and was part of Hungary's anti-Nazi
underground during World War II. He spent much of 1944-45
hiding from the Gestapo. When the war ended Szent-Györgyi
worked for several years to rebuild Budapest's scientific
establishment, hoping that the new Soviet regime would
support rather than stifle research in Hungary. He was soon
disappointed, and in 1947 emigrated to the United States
with his second wife, Marta, and settled in Woods Hole,
Massachusetts.

Szent-Györgyi continued to study muscle contraction
chemistry, with funding from the National Institutes of
Health, the American Heart Association, and others. His
laboratory at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods
Hole soon drew a number of European émigrés. He did
pioneering work on the electron microscopy of muscle during
this time, and discovered that muscle tissue stored in a
50 percent glycerin solution retained its contractility, so that
researchers need not keep supplies of fresh muscle on hand.
Such preparations became widely used in muscle research. In
1954, Szent-Györgyi received a Lasker Award for his
contributions to understanding cardiovascular diseases
through basic muscle research.

After the late 1950s, Szent-Györgyi's research focused
increasingly on the application of quantum physics to
biochemical problems, particularly the sub-molecular
aspects of energy transport mechanisms in tissues. His
elaborate theory about the mechanisms of cancerous cell
growth argued that structural proteins in cells exchanged
and conducted electrons in a very controlled way, making
the cell's chemical work possible. Disruption of this
electron-transfer system by free radicals (highly reactive
molecules lacking an electron), Szent-Györgyi suggested,
could push cells into the uncontrolled proliferative state
that characterizes cancer. Many molecular biologists were
skeptical about this theory, but Szent-Györgyi's innovative
perspectives opened new avenues of investigation that are
currently being explored.

Szent-Györgyi was also notable for his rejection of
American scientific research conventions. Devoted to doing
basic research, he eventually refused to write funding
applications that required him to say what the
investigation would produce. His laboratory at Woods Hole
flirted with financial disaster many times, and was rescued
several times by funding from unlikely sources, such as the
Armour meat company. He was offered several academic
appointments over the years, but declined them, fearing
that teaching and faculty responsibilities would leave no
time for research. His last thirteen years of work were
funded by the National Foundation for Cancer Research, a
private foundation set up especially to support Szent-Györgyi.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Szent-Györgyi, like many
scientists, spoke out against the Vietnam war and the
growing threat of nuclear weapons. He published many
articles and several books addressing these topics,
including The Crazy Ape (1970).

Although he held no academic appointments after moving to
the United States, most of the many scientists who worked
with Szent-Györgyi over the years gave his teaching skills
high praise. They drew inspiration from his personal charm,
his infectious enthusiasm for science, and his intuitive,
playful approach to scientific questions. Szent-Györgyi
never retired, and continued working at his MBL lab until
several months before his death, on October 22, 1986.

Szent-Györgyi published over 300 scientific articles and 11
books during his career. He received the Nobel Prize in
1937 and a Lasker Award in 1954. The U.S. National Academy
of Sciences elected him a member in 1956. On his first
return visit to Hungary in 1973, he received an honorary
doctorate from the Medical University of Szeged; that
institution was renamed Albert Szent-Györgyi Medical
University in 1987.

Brief Chronology

1893 --Born in Budapest, Hungary, September 16

1911 --Entered Budapest Medical School

1914-16 --Military service, World War I

1917 --MD from Budapest Medical School

1917 --Married Cornelia ("Nelly") Demeny; served as military physician in northern Italy

1931 --Became chair of medical chemistry department at University of Szeged, Hungary

Late 1931 --New research fellow Joseph Svirbely (from University of Pittsburgh) tested Szent-Györgyi's small remaining supply
of pure "hexuronic acid" in guinea pig study and found that it was vitamin C (ascorbic acid)

1932 --C. G. King of University of Pittsburgh (Svirbely's mentor) claimed he had isolated and identified vitamin C, without mentioning
Svirbely or Szent-Györgyi though they had informed him of their discoveries. Controversy ensued

1933-36 --Traveled widely, "preaching vitamin C," and trying it out on various diseases; also continued to work on metabolic
processes of muscle cells

1933-41 --Increased anti-fascist activity, especially in his role as university professor and rector; included helping Jewish friends
to flee as conditions became more repressive

1937 --Received Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for "discoveries in connection with the biological combustion processes,
with especial reference to vitamin C and the catalysis of fumaric acid"

1938-43 --Began work on the biochemistry of muscle movement; articulated ideas about applying quantum physics to biochemical studies
(1941)

1941 --Divorced Nelly; married Marta Miskolczy

1941-45 --Became more involved in politics, and eventually in Hungary's anti-fascist underground; met with Allied representatives
in 1943 regarding Hungary's possible defection from Axis alliance, leading Hitler to demand his arrest. Under house arrest
in summer of 1944, escaped just ahead of Gestapo, and spent rest of war as a fugitive

1945-47 --Helped to rebuild Budapest, especially the University and Academy of Sciences; hoped that occupying Russian forces would tolerate
social demoncracy, but was disappointed

1947 --Emigrated to United States; settled at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and established the Szent-Györgyi Foundation for muscle
research

1948-50 --Received a research stipend from National Institutes of Health (NIH); also funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and Princeton
University. Szent-Györgyi Foundation renamed Institute for Muscle Research

1950-54 --Received research funding from Armour Meat Company to continue research on muscle tissue and biochemistry. Additional funding
from American Heart Association

1954 --Received a Lasker Award in 1954 for his contribution to understanding cardiovascular diseases through basic research

1955 --Became U.S. citizen

1955-70s --Took up work on bioflavinoids, focusing on their possible value in understanding and treating cancer; much of the funding
from NIH grants

1956 --Elected to National Academy of Sciences

1960s --Began writing and speaking about nuclear threat and peace movement, later on the Vietnam war

1963 --Marta Szent-Györgyi died of cancer

1972 --Franklin and Tamara Salisbury began raising funds for a foundation to support Szent-Györgyi's research on cancer,
the National Foundation for Cancer Research

1973-83 --Szent-Györgyi's work supported by NFCR; theories developed about the connections between chemical free radicals and
cancer